Newsletter: September 22, 2018

Hello all,

I had a week at home and it was pretty nice. Got a lot done in the lab too so that is always good. I hope everyone had a good week and is enjoying the weekend!  We deserve it.

I only did one article lately and it was on the iOS 12 release. I have started on two articles that you might see over the weekend, which are pretty cool.  I have shown the technology to customers and it always makes them smile so I thought it good to blog about! Due to some very cool improvement in tech, I also updated my HomePod article.  Now I can initiate phone calls with it and does that every work good! Best speakerphone around. I also updated my VSM article, which if you want a solid and useful VMware Software Manager you should check it out. I have been playing with the beta of the next major release and it is very nice indeed.

BTW, if you are still on vSphere 5.5 after end of general support, and you not sure what that means, check out this article.

I miss having the Support Assistant in my lab. I was encouraged to look at Skyline recently. But I could not install it - I only have access to a basic support entitlement via my employer so no luck. I do hope they update the SA as it would upload my logs to VMware to see if there was issue, and it was an easier - better - way to submit SR’s. I have seen one of the reports that Skyline does and I like it. To bad they would not open it to basic support entitlement - hint hint.

But, as you may expect by now, I have things to share and so I should get right to it.

Have a great week,

Michael

Virtual Machines running on vSAN 6.6 and later report guest data consistency following disk extend operation
In this article you get the full details, as well as a workaround.  I recommend if you are running on vSAN you should implement the workaround.  It is a simple workaround, and persists, and still lets you extend disks, and now safely too.  You don’t want data consistency issues!

vSphere Upgrade Series Part 5: Upgrading VMFS storage
In Nigels’s latest upgrade article you learn something I have seen customers miss and not do.  It is about how to upgrade your VMFS - which is in fact worth doing! This has been a very good series!

Introduction to Automating your vSphere Upgrade
In this article is the start to an upgrade series that will be all at the command line!  I have not done that before but I think it pretty interesting and I am looking forward to learning more.

Adaptive Resync: Balancing Safety and Productivity
Pete has an interesting article that can help you learn more about vSAN and it’s updated resync functionality.  Good reading!

Official VMware Visio Stencils and Icons for 2018
You can find out where, and the details in this article.  There is an odd list of do’s and don’t which I find interesting.

Eliminate the Windows Reboot after Updating VMware Tools
This is a good reminder about some cool changes.  It is also a reminder that I need to get the Paravirtual SCSI driver in use in my Win2K16 machines.

vRealize Orchestrator 7.5 now GA
You can find the release notes and there seems to be quite a bit of new stuff in this release. Here is the bits.

Log Insight 4.7 now GA
I see that there is some new features for agents, one in particular I like and that is compression of rotated log files. The agents get more platform support with is good. It seems that a lot of the server side of what’s new is going to be things out of sight to us but helping anyway like the optimized vSphere integration. The full list is in the release notes.  Here is the bits.  I guess we won’t get Steve’s great articles on new versions anymore.  I can say that I have upgraded and it is working good.

vRealize Automation 7.5 now GA
It looks like vRA 7.5 is massively updated in the UI and workflows.  That is pretty exciting as I bet they made things smoother and easier. I hear that there is seriously updated integration with vROps.  They are turning into a killer team! Here is the bits, and the release notes. I love the history view that shows you the previous requests.  Quite handy. And for me, contextual access to the documentation is pretty good too. But the list of what’s new is pretty long! I have not updated my vRA yet, but that might happen next week, and with supervision!

vRealize Operations 7 now GA
This is another big release for vROps. You can see what is new in the release notes, but one thing I heard that is very cool is you have the ability to share a dashboard out with people or software - it can be embedded and that can be quite useful I think. I have not upgraded yet since a Management Pack that is important to me is not support by 7.0 yet. Here is the bits. BTW, here is an article with good what’s new info. I am impressed with how far, and how fast vROps has come. BTW, this is a major new version, and thus requires a new license.

vRealize Operations for Horizon View 6.6 is now GA
The first thing to realize is that this is vROps 6.7.  But this most excellent tool is now GA and very useful for Horizon View shops.  You have waited a while! Here is the release notes, and bits.

Network Insight September 2018 Release Technical Overview
An nice article on what is new in vRNI and it seems to be a big release too.Here is the release notes but I could not find the bits.

Announcing general availability of VMware NSX-T Data Center 2.3.0
You can read about this new version in this article. The bare-metal support sounds interesting. Here is the release notes, and the bits.

How to Get Started with VMware vSphere Security
Melissa has an interesting article that will provide you with help in getting started in vSphere security.  And that is a good thing for all IT admins to have some knowledge and experience in.

vMotion fails to migrate and EVC fails to enable
In this article you can learn about a problem someone had, and how they solved it.  Interesting and some good suggestions come out of it.

The Office 365 Shared Responsibility Model
If you think that Microsoft will protect your email in Office 365 you do need to read this article - because they don’t.

Creating Policy based backup jobs for vCloud Director Self Service portal with tenant creation
Anthony has an interesting article about how you can use PowerShell to enable serious functionality in vCD and the Veeam self service portal.  Very cool.

Windows Admin Center 1809 and SDK now generally available
I do like the Admin Center, though I have not used it much, and we have a new version with lots of functionality and also an SDK which is very good.  As time goes by it will be nice to have other vendors plug their management into it.

MS: Word: Paste and Match Formatting by default
Thanks Duncan, this is very handy - now when I paste into Word, the destination formatting is preserved!

Building a duress code function with Citrix ADC
This is an interesting article about doing something quite cool and useful.  I believe that Blackberry had something like this with a PIN reversal.  This is cool stuff that is great for spy’s, and intelligence operators, but I think for executives, and people that visit dangerous places it could be good to have this functionality as well. I also think people that work in critical infrastructure might be well served to have this functionality too.  I do like how it is not just to block access but some of the options for what happens after are pretty interesting. I do wonder though, is it better to not talk about this sort of functionality?  I think maybe if I had built it, I would not have blogged about it, or let the public know.

Does California’s own GDPR create more problems than it answers?
Danny has some very good points in this article.  Privacy is tough stuff and it is hard to get right.

BitLocker Countermeasures
In this article you can learn about how Microsoft protects BitLocker, or maybe better said how Microsoft has enabled BitLocker to protect itself.

Burnout in IT
This article is good to read as it may help you out. I have gotten close to burnout a number of times, but regular exercise really helped me deal with it.  And a strong relationship at home. It is good to know more in this area as I suspect more people will get involved it and could use the help.

ARKit apps
If you have an iPhone 8, maybe a 7, or one of the new ones you will find ARKit stuff pretty cool.  In fact for me some of it is amazing.  But here is an article with links to lots of games to explore and it might be entertaining for you!

All the Shortcuts actions: Apple Apps
You may be aware that in iOS 12 you can do shortcuts that will be execute when you ask Siri to execute them.  You can see a bit more about shortcuts in this article.

New with iOS 12: Hands-Free access to your Travel Plans with Siri Shortcuts
If you use TripIt they have already published how you can do some Siri shortcuts to enable the interaction with TripIt and your voice. Find out in this article.

Apple Watch Series 4
An article about the release of the the series 4, and one here about a review of it. As part of the new watch here is info on watchOS 5. I did the upgrade to the watchOS 5 with no issues on my Series 3. I did not buy a new phone as a result of the event, but I have bought a new watch!

Apple Updates
I have updated my iOS devices (article) with no issue. My watch, HomePod, and TV were all updated with no issue, and I am liking the new version.  I have an older MBA with Mojave on it, for like the last 5 builds and I am happy with it too.  My early concerns are fine now.  So I will be updating on Monday my production machine to Mojave. However, here is an alternative view.

Apple’s new anti-fraud Trust Scope: Separating facts from FUD
In this article you can get a very good understanding of exactly what Apple is doing to try and protect us even more from fraud.  It sounds pretty good but three is some FUD out there so this article is a big help.

Microsoft Azure IaaS Solutions Links and Additional Resources
You can find an interesting guide from Turbonomic and O’Reilly about Azure IaaS Solutions so if you want to learn more it is a great spot to start.

Optical fibre made in orbit should be better than the terrestrial sort
This article is pretty interesting, and maybe we have the something that we will make in orbit that will help move things along in space.

NCIX Data Breach
This Canadian company went bankrupt, and the owners walked away.  Someone took over their datacenter, and started selling information.  The full story is in this article. I know someone who had made purchases at this computer store and he is now changing his credit card for a new one.  This is a very bad story, and something I hope at some point there will be legislation that will prevent this sort of thing.  Too bad the owners were not able to wipe the machines before they walked away.

NSS Labs vs. CrowdStrike, Symantec, ESET and the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization
In this article you can see the level of silly that is going on in the AV market.  Surprising amount of dishonesty in fact.  I am glad that NSS is trying to make a difference.  It will help us customers out!

Thanks for reading or skimming this far,

Michael

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